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Feb. 6, 2026 - The Ben Shapiro Show
50:57
SHOCKING Kidnapping Update
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Time Text
Ransom Note Revelations 00:15:22
Nancy Guthrie, Savannah Guthrie's mom, is still missing.
We'll bring you all of the updates.
Plus, the president of the United States at the National Prayer Breakfast and getting himself into hot water for a pretty awful truth social post.
But did he even know what he was posting at the time?
We'll get into all of it first.
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The nation awaits more updates on what is going on with Nancy Guthrie.
That is Savannah Guthrie's mom.
That is the biggest unfolding story in the country right now.
The kidnapping of the 84-year-old mother of the TV star has, I think, set a lot of people on edge and for very good reason.
Apparently, according to the New York Post, Nancy Guthrie's purported kidnappers claimed in a ransom note sent to TMZ that the 84-year-old at TV host mom is safe but scared and they know exactly what chilling demands are being made for her return.
The note apparently was sent to TMZ two days after Guthrie's mom was reported missing and demanded millions in Bitcoin be turned over to avoid consequential repercussions.
This, of course, is very scary stuff.
Savannah Guthrie went on national media yesterday to plead with the kidnappers to release her mom.
You know, obviously, it's an act of evil.
There have been reports that neighbors had spotted some suspicious vehicles outside Nancy Guthrie's home earlier in the week, a van that was parked down the street.
Here is Savannah Guthrie pleading for the release of her mom.
Our mom is our heart and our home.
She is 84 years old.
Her health, her heart is fragile.
She lives in constant pain.
She is without any medicine.
She needs it to survive.
She needs it not to suffer.
We too have heard the reports about a ransom letter in the media.
As a family, we are doing everything that we can.
We are ready to talk.
Savannah Guthrie's brother also released a video yesterday, late yesterday, asking kidnappers to release.
This is Cameron Guthrie.
I'm speaking for the Guthrie family.
Whoever is out there holding our mother, we want to hear from you.
We haven't heard anything directly.
We need you to reach out and we need a way to communicate with you so we can move forward.
But first, we have to know that you have our mom.
We want to talk to you and we are waiting for contact.
Absolutely horrifying case, obviously.
According to TMZ, the original ransom note contained insider details about the abduction, including information about her Apple Watch and a damaged floodlight at her million-dollar home.
The note was sent before those details were publicly revealed, which is why some people think that the note is legit.
Now, there are some people who are taking advantage of this.
Apparently, one imposter had sent a ransom note, a fake ransom note, and then was caught and charged.
According to the New York Post, a California man accused of sending phony ransom texts to Savannah Guthrie's family about her missing mother has been arrested and charged, according to that criminal complaint filed on Thursday.
Some sick, twisted piece of trash named Derek Colella, who's in his mid-40s, messaged Guthrie's daughter Annie and son-in-law Tommaso Cioni about the ailing 84-year-old on Wednesday, according to a complaint filed in Arizona federal court.
A lot of sick people out there, a lot of perverse people out there, obviously.
Apparently, the authorities have been receiving a flurry of fake Nancy Guthrie ransom notes, and that is actually bogging down their resources in their search for the actual kidnappers at this point.
According to the Post, at least three ransom messages have been reported to Arizona and federal authorities in the five days since Guthrie was disappeared from her million-dollar Tucson home.
Only one of them was being taken seriously so far.
There are a fair number of clues, apparently, that Nancy Guthrie was targeted.
According to certain officials, including former special agent Tracy Walder at the FBI's LA field office, he says, I think that this was targeted.
He says, I don't think this is a botched robbery because you don't want to burden yourself with the person that you're taking out.
I mean, pretty clearly, this was targeted.
It'd be hard to imagine that it wasn't targeted.
Well, there was an original ransom deadline.
That ransom deadline did pass at 5 p.m. yesterday.
That does not necessarily mean that something terrible happened, although the threats were there that something would happen if the deadline passed and a ransom was not paid.
Now, all of this is very upsetting.
Former FBI director Andrew McCabe said that in these situations, you get a lot of false leads, you get a lot of scammers, you get a lot of people trying to take advantage of a horrible situation.
It's unthinkable, but it does happen.
He said, obviously, that if you're a kidnapped 84-year-old person, then that is incredibly stressful medically, physiologically, psychologically.
Whether the police are any closer is totally unclear at this point in time.
The sheriff who's overseeing all of this, a guy named Chris Nanos, he said they've gone through over 100 tips at this point.
Are you flooded with tips?
Are the phones ringing nonstop?
We've probably gone through well over 100 tips.
I don't want to discourage anybody.
All tips.
There's no tip too small.
We want all that information.
Nanos added that what had been described to him was a very disturbing scene.
He said that the specific ransom note that they are taking very seriously, again, contained details about things at the house that were accurate.
This one came to me in a text, and I read it, and it concerned me right away.
Where I thought, all right, I have a great search and rescue team, very robust.
They do amazing things, but I felt like something didn't sound right to me.
And so I advised him right then, you should be calling our homicide team.
What did they do?
You know, I can't get into that because it's part of the case, but they described to me a scene that just disturbed me.
We'll bring you more updates.
You can check all the updates over at the Daily Wire app where we have a podcast that is covering ongoing developments in the Nancy Guthrie case.
We'll get to more on all this in just a moment.
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Joining me on the line for all the latest updates is Lyndon Blake.
She's our Daily Wire investigative reporter.
And of course, she has a podcast covering all of this right now over at Daily Wire Plus.
Just another reason you should go subscribe.
She's bringing constant updates.
Lyndon, thanks so much for the time.
Of course, Ben, a lot to get to on the sixth day of the search for Nancy Guthrie.
So we have heard, obviously, that the first deadline in what police believe to be a real ransom note has passed.
What is the next deadline?
What sort of consequences were threatened, if any?
Yeah, so the next deadline is the big deadline.
5 p.m. Thursday, the first one.
It's gone.
The next one was Monday.
And KGUN, one of the outlets that reported receiving the ransom note, they gave details on what it meant if that deadline wasn't met on Monday.
And they said the note threatened to kill Nancy if payment for the millions of dollars in Bitcoin wasn't received by Monday.
So again, those two stations in Arizona, the local news stations plus TMZ all got the same ransom note.
That's new information that we learned during Thursday's press conference was the news outlets that got the ransom notes were the same.
And again, it hasn't been authenticated as, yes, the person that wrote this ransom note has Nancy, but this is a ransom note that the family has now addressed on camera twice.
It's the one that the family is taking seriously.
And the FBI that's looking into the ransom notes and kind of heading up that part of the investigation made it clear that they can advise the family on what to say.
We saw Savannah reading off a script.
We saw her brother on Thursday night reading off a script.
But ultimately, it is up to the family to respond, to agree to make a payment if they want to continue to engage with this person, the author of the ransom note.
So to me, that sticks out again as Savannah, who has the court TV background, the lawyer background, is saying there is something in this ransom note.
And I do not believe it was the Apple Watch and the floodlight that the sheriff and the FBI brought up as two things that were in the ransom note.
I think there is more in that ransom note that is personal, that the family is saying, this seems legit.
We're engaging.
So meanwhile, on Tuesday, we had talked about this, that Ashley Banfield had reported that Nancy Guthrie's son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, might be the prime suspect, but that apparently has been walked back and called reckless by the Pima County Sheriff, Chris Nanos.
Yeah, so when they did walk it back and it was called reckless, they did also say, though, that no one is ruled out.
Of course, they're talking to the family.
And that is something that Ashley Banfield, since we last talked Ben, has not walked back on, but she is sticking by her law enforcement source that says the brother-in-law may be a prime suspect in this case.
But again, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said that they have no prime suspect.
They have no person of interest day six here in the search for Nancy Guthrie.
The action, though, that's happening at Annie Guthrie's house and Tommaso Sioni's house is that we now know they have taken one of those Celebrite boxes, one of those boxes that just extracts all this digital information, that that was seen leaving Annie Guthrie's house.
So we know they are looking in.
This is a digital investigation and they're pulling stuff from Annie Guthrie's house, who, mind you, is the closest person that lives to Nancy.
And something else that was walked back relating to Tommaso and Annie Guthrie during Thursday's press conference was the sheriff has told news outlets that it was Tommaso that dropped off Nancy Guthrie Saturday night.
We now know that she oopered to her house, her daughter's house, and was brought back by Tommaso.
That was on record told to a news outlet.
That was walked back during Thursday's press conference and the FBI was asked about it and they quickly exchanged the podium and the sheriff comes up and he goes, We're just saying family.
We're just saying family.
So I thought that was interesting.
That was walked back as well as forced entry.
That had been on record reported from authorities.
That was walked back yesterday as well when he was saying, I don't know where that has come from.
That's something we're not talking about.
Also, just was a note that was unusual too.
I'm not asking you to say that the window was busted in in the kitchen, but now you're saying that we're not discussing forced entry or not.
That to me is like the person knew how to get in the house.
Yeah.
So all of this obviously remains incredibly mysterious.
Have we had any indicators from the Guthrie family that they are willing to go forward with some sort of ransom payment in order to free the mom?
Or I assume that the question is whether the person is either legit or whether they do harm to Nancy Guthrie, even if they receive the payment.
Yeah, well, there's no word if they're willing to pay.
They want proof of life first.
That's the big demand.
They do want to move forward and open up that communication line because a ransom note doesn't give any proof of life and doesn't give a way to communicate.
So that's why they are going out on Instagram.
They're going out to the global platform and trying to be like, we want to talk.
We want to communicate with you, but we want proof of life.
They're not going to continue to play this phishing game.
And now we know the imposter from LA was arrested that reached out to Annie Guthrie and tried to get Bitcoin, but they want proof of life and they want to open the communication.
And I am assuming if they are going that far that they know this is legit, there would be talks about payment as well, because this is their mother.
This is the grandmother that they obviously think is being held by this person of this ransom note.
Obviously, we'll continue to keep tabs on all of this, but the person who you should be listening to is, of course, Lyndon, because she is hosting Finding Nancy Guthrie.
That, of course, is our first ever true crime podcast.
It is unfolding in real time and is following the investigation as it continues.
Episode two is already out.
Head on over to Dailywire Plus right now and make sure that you subscribe so you can get all of the updates.
Lyndon, really appreciate it.
Thanks, Ben.
Meanwhile, it does feel as though violence is becoming more normalized, high-profile violence.
Yes, the murder rate is down across the country.
Thank God for that.
But it feels like the unhinged are finding it a particularly useful time to go after a wide variety of public figures.
According to CBS News, a Maryland man who said he feared President Trump's re-election would lead to a fascist takeover is now facing attempted murder charges after he showed up at the Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vaught's Northern Virginia home wearing a surgical mask and gloves, according to court documents and sources familiar with the matter.
The person who did the attack was arrested January 22nd by Arlington County Police on several criminal charges.
During the course of the investigation, agents with the U.S. Marshal Service also discovered that this person had previously claimed to be writing a manifesto and that he had also drafted a series of notes detailing everything from a weapon stash to a body disposal guide.
The court records show that the defendant is accused of plotting to murder a victim with the initials RV, who, according to the criminal complaint, has served as a presidential appointee.
Sources familiar with the case separately confirmed to CBS News that the alleged target was apparently Ross Vogt.
Now, the fact that most human beings could not identify Ross Vote if looking through a police lineup.
He is not one of the most high-profile members of the Trump administration by leaps and bounds.
Arrest of the Antifa Threat 00:08:33
And yet the fact that he was being targeted for death by a deranged individual, again, it shows that there is something that is broken.
There is something that is broken.
The normalization of political violence that reached its apex with the murder of Charlie Kirk, that has not gone away.
And it seems to be getting worse and worse.
I'm not sure how to put that genie back in the bottle, except for everyone to take down the temperature.
Everyone has to take down the temperature because if that does not happen, then what you end up with is more violence.
So, just to take another example, the feds have now arrested a person named Kyle Wagner, a cross-dressing Antifa terrorist who allegedly threatened to assault, kill, and dox officers in Minneapolis, according to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
He said in an ex-post, the Justice Department with ICE arrested a self-identified anti-ICE Antifa terrorist in Minneapolis today.
Conspire and threaten to assault, kill, and dox officers, and you'll find yourself in federal custody, facing the full force of justice.
Following the fatal shooting of anti-ICE activist Alex Predi in Minneapolis, according to the Daily Wire, Wagner allegedly told his followers to take up arms and attack law enforcement.
This person said, Show up, ready to go, not talking about peaceful protests anymore.
He called on people to march with guns and said the Second Amendment is the only thing that's going to keep you effing protected from literal effing Nazi gunmen.
Get your effing guns and stop these effing people, he added.
He was also seen in videos wearing women's clothing.
Here was Caroline Levitt announcing the arrest of this Antifa member.
Just today, the Department of Homeland Security arrested this individual.
He is a self-proclaimed Antifa member who has been threatening, doxing, harassing ICE.
He called for the murder of federal law enforcement officers.
He encouraged bloodshed in the streets of Minnesota.
He proudly acclaimed affiliation with the domestic terrorist organization Antifa.
And the Department of Justice, thanks to the great work of HSI and the FBI, were able to locate and arrest this individual today.
Now, unbelievably, one of these observer mobs, meaning people who are trying to obstruct law enforcement, actually surrounded the agents who are arresting him, which just goes to show you how out of control things are in Minnesota.
You can see here the officers coming to arrest him, and you have the observer mobs who are surrounding these officers as they go to arrest a criminal who's threatening to murder ICE officers.
This is where we are now.
And this is being fomented by the mayor of Minneapolis and by the governor of Minnesota and by a legacy media that treats basic law enforcement function as a crime that apparently not only requires observers to be there, but sometimes requires obstruction of law.
And the person they're arresting was not particularly vague about his threats.
Here's a video of him threatening ICE.
This is where ICE has come to die.
I'm more than willing to keep the peace if they will go back to wherever they crawled out of and leave us alone.
We want to know who they are.
We will identify every single one of them and we will prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
And if that has to be done at the barrel of a gun, then let us have a little fun.
Obviously, this person is deranged.
And when I say deranged, I think that you probably could have told that by his cross-dressing fetish that he was observing online.
This is this person when he is not looking somewhat like a tattooed skinhead preparing to kill ICE members.
This is, for those who can't see, this is him wearing a cutout bra and short skirt and some sort of pornographic getup as a man.
So, yes, it turns out that we are, when you heat up the temperature politically, the way that it has been heated up, you should not be surprised when it starts to overflow with the craziest people.
And that is one thing that you are starting to see more and more these days.
And again, some of this is being promoted openly by Democrats.
So for example, Bernie Sanders was asked just yesterday if it's illegal for people to invade churches to protest immigration law, which of course is the subject of the Don Lemon arrest, among other arrests.
And here is Bernie Sanders basically refusing to say if it's illegal for people to do this.
Can I ask you real quick what you think about Don Lemon's arrest?
Well, many statements.
Do you think it was appropriate, though, for those protesters to be in the church?
Is that a protected First Amendment right inside the church protesting?
Thanks.
And there he is just walking away.
Why is it hard to just say it's wrong for people to invade a church to do this stuff?
I disagree with what ICE is doing, but it's wrong for people to invade a church.
And the answer is that for the radical left and for the increasingly the mainstream left, the people who are violent, the people who are crazy, those people are just too wedded to the cause, meaning they are just too pure in intent.
They're the people who are doing the real revolutionary work.
And sure, we don't love what they're doing, but are we able to condemn what they're doing when they are really standing in heroic ways for the things that need to be done?
This is the permission structure that has been created increasingly by the mainstream left for acts of violence.
And it's happening all over the place.
Yesterday, Alexander Ocasio-Cortez was asked about Don Lemon and his husband, commended their bravery.
I just have to give my kudos.
It is not easy.
And, you know, I know that Don is at the center of this, but, you know, it affects all of our families.
And so for you to stand up there and to be in this situation, I just want to commend the bravery of both of you.
And just, you know, kudos and the envy of everyone.
Everybody wants a moment like that.
So congratulations.
And by the way, AOC is spilling the beans at the very end there.
Everyone wants a moment like that.
Yes, Don Lemon was gaming for a moment like that.
Absolutely.
Being part of the resistance means that if you can draw law enforcement upon you, then you have now become a victim, even if you're the one who's allegedly committing the crime.
For her part, Assistant Attorney General Harmee Dylan, Civil Rights Division, she says there may be as many as 40 people who are charged for entering the church and disrupting church activities under the FACE Act.
How big is the universe of suspects right now?
We're talking about 10 people.
Is it 15 people?
Is it 20?
There are nine people who've been arrested pursuant to the indictment.
I believe the total number of people involved in this, based on what we see on the videos that were streamed by the participants themselves, is probably closer to 40 people.
Okay, meanwhile, the rest of the Trump administration continues to say that the law must be enforced.
This is where the left to overreach could really harm them because it turns out Americans don't like this sort of radicalism very much.
They really, really do not.
Caroline Levitt said that President Trump will not waver in enforcing immigration law.
When it comes to any discussions about immigration policy, the president is never going to waver in his commitment to allow immigration enforcement efforts in this country and to support ICE and Border Patrol and the deportation of illegal alien criminals.
And Levitt also continued by pointing out that while everybody is very much focused on ICE and the supposed predatory evils of ICE, there are still illegal immigrants who are in the country and should not be here who are killing people.
Four Americans were tragically killed and lost their lives this week, yet again, from an illegal alien, an individual who was paroled into the country by the Biden administration using the CBP1 app, which they created like it was a magic pass for Disneyland.
That's not how immigration in this country should work.
And this illegal alien from Kyrgyzstan was traveling on an Indiana highway and he failed to break for a slowed semi-truck in front of him.
He swerved into the lane and he crashed into a van carrying 15 passengers and four people were killed in that crash.
This is another tragedy that could have been prevented if not for the wide open borders from the previous administration.
That's why we now have a secure border.
That's why this administration will continue to deport illegal aliens from our country.
We should point out at this point that one of the big reasons for the Trump coalition, and it is a coalition, one of the big reasons that Trump is able to manage a very unwieldy coalition is because it is not a conservative coalition.
Religious Shift in Republicans 00:10:37
It is not a Christian coalition.
It is an anti-left coalition.
Just to be accurate about this, if the Republican Party wants to build going forward, they're going to have to retain a modicum of moderation.
They're going to have to recognize that the vast majority of the American people are not people who agree with me on every policy or agree with the vice president on every policy or agree with Stephen Miller on every policy.
That actually, if you want to retain electoral success, the best way to do that is to point to the radicalism of the left and to say, we're not that.
We're the normies.
Why do I bring this up?
Well, yesterday, the president returned to the national prayer breakfast and he gave what was, I think, a pretty amusing speech.
A bunch of high-profile attendees, obviously, including the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, the Attorney General Pam Bondi, Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, VA Secretary, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, a bunch of other people.
And the president then proceeded to give a speech that was sort of religious in overtone, but one of the things about Trump that is fascinating is that he's been able to do things that a lot of Christians, conservatives, religious Jews like me, like, that he's been able to do a lot of those things while maintaining a largely secular coalition.
If you take a look, for example, at the Republican Party coalition these days, this is a graphic of religious affiliation by party affiliation in 2023.
And so right before Trump's reelection, this is from PRRI and the American Values Atlas.
If you take a look at the religious constituency of the Republican Party, what you see is that in 2013, about 10% of people who identified as Republican were religiously unaffiliated.
Today, that number is 12%.
In 2013, the percentage of people who identified as Jewish in the Republican Party was 0%.
Today, it's 2%.
If you look at non-Christian, non-Christian was 0%.
Now it's 2%.
Those incremental increases in the non-religious party affiliation inside the, sorry, that increase, what would appear to be marginal increase in non-Christian affiliation inside the Republican Party is in fact not marginal because the overall loss of sort of traditional religious constituency in the Republican Party is reflective of an overall loss of religiosity in the American public more generally.
If you went back further, by the way, what you would see is a bigger slide, that the vast majority of Republicans used to be religious.
Today, the majority of Republicans are religious, but an increasing percentage are not particularly religious.
And it is pretty religiously adverse.
30% of Republicans in 2023 were white evangelical Protestants.
Another 20% were white mainline non-evangelical Protestants.
About 17% were white Catholics.
That number has not increased since 2013.
About 3% were Latter-day Saints.
That's actually a decrease of 1%.
You've seen a fairly significant increase in black and Hispanic Protestants.
And then you've seen sort of the other category has grown a fair bit.
Now, that doesn't mean that the Republican Party should somehow abandon the moral issues that make the Republican Party the Republican Party.
That's not my case.
My case is that making the Republican Party non-ecumenical as opposed to ecumenical is a mistake.
And you've seen this sort of move being made on behalf of some parts of the sort of trad cath right, some of the quasi-integralists on the right, who seem to be making a move to break up the Republican coalition by suggesting that there is a vast religious revival that is happening in the country that is going to drive Republicans to victory.
Those numbers do not exist.
By the way, I wish there were.
Okay.
So don't get me wrong.
I wish there were a vast religious revival in the country and that the Republican Party was closer to its biblical moral values.
I wish that were the case.
That is not supported by the data, which is why Trump is the right president for this moment.
And it's why Republicans have to watch out for this sort of coalitional building and how not to break it up.
Let me show you a couple of other statistics.
In terms of how often people attend religious services, for example, those numbers have been declining radically.
People who are born in the 1940s, 49% of those people, people who are now aged 75 plus, essentially, those people, 49% of them go to church at least monthly.
Today, people who are born 2000 to 2006, that number has been sliced in half, 25%.
How about weekly?
Same numbers: 40% for people who are 75 up, 18% for people who are aged 18 to 24.
So when you talk about the increasing irreligiosity of the body politic, that is correct.
So it is still true that on a political basis, the more religious you are, the more you identify as Republican.
But one of the things that's really sort of fascinating is that even the people who identify in the top quintile of religion are not down the line in terms of their conservatism.
That doesn't mean, again, that Republicans should abandon social issues.
They absolutely should not.
But it does mean that the more overt you are about the more marginal social issues, the more you are likely to lose the Trump coalition.
The thing about President Trump, again, he's winning outsized shares of Christians and evangelicals and Catholics and all the rest of this.
He's doing all of that because the left is crazy, not because he is campaigning as some sort of religious figure.
So the president, for example, has not taken the position, a very strong position anyway, that women should drop out of the workforce.
There's a wing of the Republican coalition that says basically it is best if all women are at home and none are working.
That is, again, a fringe wing that seems to be gaining credence in places like X.
Okay, the reality in American politics, 34% of people in the highest quintile of religious observance believe children are better off if the mom stays at home to raise them.
One-third.
So even the most religious quintile is not saying that.
And that's, again, the top 20%, I'm sure virtually all of whom are voting Republican.
When you look at all of these issues, 61% of people in the highest quintile identify with or lean toward the Republican Party.
63% of those people believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, which, of course, is the position that I take.
Only 34%, again, say children are better off if the mom stays home to raise them.
And only 37% say America risks losing national identity if it's too open to outsiders.
In other words, the sort of trad movement, which, by the way, is sort of destroying itself online right now because it turns out a lot of the trad influencers are acting in very non-trad ways, shall we say.
There's a pretty high-profile case online in which a supposedly trad influencer was sleeping with another trad influencer.
And unfortunately, this sort of thing is not particularly uncommon these days.
According to Will Sommer writing at the bulwark, the online right has been shaken this week by a recording that suggests far-right podcaster Elijah Schaefer, one of the biggest proponents of traditional or trad family values, may have had an affair with employee Sarah Stock, an e-girl and influencer, so ostensibly traditional, her marriage was blessed by the Pope himself.
This sort of stuff, unfortunately, there's a lot of hypocrisy in this particular area.
The reason I'm pointing this out again, if you wish Republicans to win, then presenting good policy with a moderate face, even if you have outsize rhetoric like President Trump, is a better path to victory than embracing the fringe positions taken by so many in the X space.
President Trump can go to the national prayer breakfast and he can give what are at best sort of vague religious statements, and that's fine with people.
And President Trump literally joked about making it to heaven at the national prayer breakfast.
Here he was yesterday.
I said, where?
National prayer breakfast.
I said, I'll be there.
I'm afraid not to be.
I need all the help I can get.
I'm never going to make it to heaven.
I just don't think I qualify.
I don't think there's a thing I can do.
But all of these good things I'm doing, including for religion, you know, religion's back now hotter than ever before.
I mean, I have to tell you.
But I said, even though I did that and so many other things, I named things.
I said, I won't qualify.
I'm not going to make it to heaven.
And the New York Times did a front page story that Donald Trump is questioning his life and the meaning of his life.
No, I was just having fun.
I really think I probably should make it.
I mean, I'm not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.
That's for sure.
Again, that sort of last line there that he's done a lot of things for people.
Again, I think that is why he's the president, has been president twice.
President Trump also joked about Mike Johnson's religiosity, the speaker of the house.
In 2025, more copies of the Holy Bible were sold in the United States than at any time in the last 100 years.
Now, how about that?
How about that?
Did you know that, Mr. Speaker?
You know, Mike Johnson's a very religious person, and he does not hide it.
He'll say to me sometimes at lunch, sir, may we pray?
Say, excuse me.
We have been lunch.
It's okay with me.
But President Trump also says, listen, you have to believe in something.
You have to have religion generally.
And this is the American position.
The American position is that biblical values are good and that we like the practice of religion in this country.
Freedom of religion and freedom from government, intervention in religion, that is the same amendment.
And that is for a reason.
That broadly ecumenical approach is a winning approach for the Republicans.
And pointing at the radical left anti-religious secularism of the left is a winning approach for Republicans.
I've always said you just can't have a great country if you don't have religion.
You have to believe in something.
You have to believe that what we're doing, there's a reason for it.
Of course, he is obviously correct about that.
And President Trump has the pulse of the American people on the vast majority of issues, which is why he usually takes the 80%.
Republicans need to continue to do that.
Voter ID Controversy 00:05:02
The good news is Democrats are making it fairly easy.
Democrats, for example, when it comes to voter ID, continue to take the position that it is Jim Crow 2.0 to do voter ID.
That, of course, is unbelievably silly.
President Trump says, listen, everybody wants voter ID.
Democrats obviously would like to cheat if they don't want voter ID.
It polls at 97%.
And even the Democrat, the people, the voters are at 82% for voter ID, but the leaders don't want to approve it.
They said they will strike.
They will not allow it to happen.
It's polling it over 90%.
It's called voter identification.
When you go to the polls, you show up.
Yes, my name is so-and-so, and I live in the country.
I'm here.
I can vote.
They say that's not allowed.
And everyone's trying to figure it out.
And they do something to win.
You know what it is?
They cheat.
But let's get on to another subject.
Bill Maher was with Stephen A. Smith, and they were both pointing out that it's very stupid for Democrats to call voter ID Jim Crow 2.0.
Don't engage in that kind of hyperbole because we're living in the year 2026.
And when you start bringing up Jim Crow 2.0, you're trying to harken back to a time that most people recognize.
No, we're not living in those times right now.
Of course, we've got our troubles, but we're not doing, don't do that because that's playing right into Trump's hands.
Was I right in saying that?
And yes, and you're factually right.
It's this thing that he's trying to do with not conceding elections.
It's not primarily a racial issue.
Not everything is primarily a racial issue.
It has racial overtones, as does everything in this country.
But yes, you're right.
It's foolish to make it about that.
Yeah, obviously that is correct.
Democrats keep taking the 20% on the 80-20.
That is a very, very dumb bet.
Now, when it comes to the 2026 elections, it is not as though Republicans are set to clean up.
And the question becomes why?
And there are a few key reasons.
One is people still feel on tensor hooks about the economy.
That is definitely one big reason.
And another reason is because people are tired, man.
I mean, let's just be real about this.
People are very tired of the way that politics has been working in the country.
A large part of that has been driven by the left.
But it doesn't help when you have headlines like you have today about the stuff that the president has been apparently posting over at Truth Social.
There is a video that he posted over at Truth Social that apparently contains an image of the Obamas as apes.
Now, obviously, ugly, terrible, stupid, all those things.
Do I think the President Trump even watched the whole video?
I have serious doubts.
President Trump has a habit of late-night truthling, where he just sort of gets up at 3 a.m. or he's up at 3 a.m. and he just starts truthing things out.
And I'm almost certain that the president never watches the entirety of any video.
I don't think he has the attention span to get through any of the videos that he's tweeting.
I think he sees that there is something that is pro-Trump, he puts it out there.
And if there's an ugly image in there, either he ignores it or he didn't see it in the first place as a general rule.
Doesn't mean that it's good for him to do it.
I think that is the reality.
Here's the video that is now launching a thousand think pieces.
Initiated by a court order, the Michigan investigation team obtained forensic access to a DS-200 tabulator, the machine that counts the votes.
A telet 4G wireless chip manufactured in Taiwan was discovered embedded into the motherboard.
The voting machine tapes clearly indicate modem engagement and transmission of election data.
Some of the anomalies that we noticed in the 2020 general elections, that five key states all stopped counting at the certain time in these key battleground states.
These were all where the software, the mini machines, ESNS machines were used, the SmartMatic, the gyms software.
So when the vote stopped counting, and this has been noted in other countries as well, President Trump was significantly ahead.
When reporting and counting resumed, there was a massive spike occurred that favored Joe Biden.
Okay, so if you actually watch that entire video in context, what you see is that the video is a minute, two seconds long.
The first 59 seconds of that video is a person speaking to camera about Dominion voting systems.
And the president put out a post about how many votes were deleted and all this.
I don't think that that stuff is verifiably true.
But as far as the video goes, the very, very tail end, like the very, very end, that's when you get the graphic of the Obama as apes.
Now, does that justify?
And it doesn't justify anything, but I think that the suggestion that the president did not watch the entirety of the video and that he just put that out late at night because he watched the first 25 seconds of the video or 40 seconds of the video, I would say that that is extremely high probability.
Big Game Commercials 00:04:51
That nonetheless will launch a thousand thing pieces.
That sort of thing is, shall we say, self-defeating at the very least.
Aside from being immoral, if the president did it on purpose, which I don't think he did, that it is self-defeating.
It is an own goal.
There is no reason for that sort of activity.
And it is one of the reasons why the president has never been able to get to 55 or 60% of the approval ratings, even when his policy has been at its height.
Well, the big game is coming up, obviously, on Sunday, and our friends over at Cal Share sponsors.
According to the Calci markets, you can buy a yes on Seattle at 69 cents and a yes on New England at 33 cents.
I believe that the Vegas odds right now also have Seattle as a pretty heavy favorite in this game.
We're going to go through some of the ads for the big game.
Some have been pre-released.
We begin with Bud Light.
Here's some of their ad.
Oh, what's that?
First beer of the wedding.
Is there enough for everyone?
Oh, right there.
I got this.
Okay, so we've got Post Malone, Shane Gillis and Peyton Manning, and a lot of people running down the hill.
That is a terrible utilization of your talent, Bill, right there.
Truly.
And now they're all just falling down the hill in slow-mo.
Okay, I think we've seen enough.
Yeah, I don't see it.
I'm not sure why this, that is happening.
It is alive for you!
Oh!
Oh!
Yeah, you can pause it.
Oh, that's the kick.
That is not a good commercial.
I mean, seriously, you have a high level of talent in that commercial, and I do not understand why you would use the talent that way.
And I don't know whose idea that was.
Not good.
Okay, let's move forward to Duncan.
They've got some celebrities for the Duncan commercial.
Okay.
Well, reactions, thoughts.
Ben Affleck.
Jason Alexander.
I have monster cringe.
Golden crown.
I don't think he directed Arco.
Did I tell you I destroyed this, burnt it, and disposed of all the copies?
Yes, I did.
Good news.
I lied to you.
Can I get a copy?
Oh, God.
No one.
No one can see this.
Yeah, it's only going to air once.
Still holds up.
Oh, God, Matthew.
What?
Okay, that's Marcus.
That's not the one you're going to see at the big game.
So we have to call it because of copyright law on Sunday.
Instead, I assume you will see the actual unaired commercial.
That's a smart preview, at least.
All right.
Xfinity did a Jurassic Park crossover.
Xfinity blowing it out on the Jurassic Park rights purchase.
What did I touch?
King paused.
Okay, so you've got the original stars.
Okay, fine.
You got Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neal in the car.
They de-aged them for the commercial as well.
Yeah, I was going to say, Jeff Goldblum, you never know, because honestly, Jeff Goldblum has been the same age since he was 12.
But okay.
We're stopped.
Offenses are failing all over the park.
Samuel Jackson.
Okay.
John.
Add Borough.
I can't get Jurassic Park back online without.
Whoa.
This place is awesome.
By the way, you should have plugged this in.
Oh, so.
Ah, okay.
I think we're back in the middle of the day.
That's clever.
Okay, that's clever.
That could have been bad.
All right.
I like it.
Okay, pause it.
That was good.
Okay, fine.
I like that.
That's good.
That is it.
That is a good use of Xfinity.
That is the best of these commercials that I have seen.
Well, they got all the original cast, including the corpse of David Attenborough.
David Attenborough died in like 2014.
So they got the original cast, including the rights, I assume, for Richard Attenborough.
So that's okay.
I like.
This is a clever use of movie placement.
Now, that is the favorite so far, for sure.
Okay, Elf Cosmetics.
Elf Presenta.
Get ready for the world's biggest reggaetone show.
What's her name?
Megan.
I don't speak Spanish.
Melissa McCarthy.
Okay.
Melissa McCarthy is Melissa McCarthy.
I know this is Savvy's jam right here.
I can hear you laughing from the other room, Savvy.
Don't pretend.
What day is it?
Melissa, the big show is tonight.
How is your Español?
Tadio soy unbeno.
Soyun beno.
Okay, even I know no Spanish.
Why He Dates Tight Ends 00:06:08
No, that's funny.
You need juicy lips so you can utter those R's.
That doesn't even make sense.
We have a lot of force.
Yeah, I'm not into it.
I'll say.
Okay, we can stop it now because now you have a dude wearing the makeup in the background.
Oh, you're going to force me to watch this?
By the way, you don't pronounce the R with your lips.
Yeah, not.
Nope.
That's going to be a no from me, dog.
Again, Elf is, as a cosmetics company, very smart in the way that they market because basically they're very, very low-cost cosmetics.
And so marketing down scale like that is pretty smart.
It looks like a cheap TV commercial.
Okay.
Savvy's not going to let me get away without going to the end here.
Okay.
You're better than this, Misa.
Fuego, fuego, que su fuego.
Wow, so that's her with the makeup, but she looks significantly worse than she did before.
And then she's dancing.
Glacier's the door.
Melisa.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like the proper amount of racism.
I mean, Savvy, you have to tell me if you're offended.
Okay, so, yeah, okay.
So Savvy loved that one.
All right, I'll let her be the judge.
Okay, honestly, I will admit that I've seen this commercial already, and I think this is actually the best of the commercials.
This one is very, very good.
Betting on the right guy with Fanatic Sportsbook.
Explained by Kendall Jenner.
Haven't you heard?
The internet says I'm cursed.
Any basketball player who dates me kind of hits a rough paste.
While the world's been talking about it, I've been betting on it.
How else do you think I can afford all this?
Okay, it's a clever conceit.
And then she goes through everybody who she's dated, basically.
I kind of feel bad for the dudes she dated.
Honestly, she's just torching their careers and making money off of it, which is a pretty terrible move morally.
But as a commercial, it's a very funny conceit that she's dating people just to destroy their careers and then bet on their destroyed careers.
This pool, basketball boyfriend one, missed the playoffs.
I guess nobody was getting a ring in this house.
Do you like this bad boy?
Boyfriend two flopped right out of the league.
Not that I ever drive.
This cute jack.
Thanks, boyfriend three.
But today, it's time to bet on something new.
Football players, I'm making my bet on who's going to win.
And you can bet with me or against me on Fanatic Sportsbook.
Next up, San Francisco.
Football boyfriend.
Yes.
Okay, her as like evil supervillain is pretty funny.
Only on Fanatic.
I'll admit that's funny.
I do enjoy the fact that that commercial is basically about how to rig betting.
It's basically about insider betting.
But yeah, at least it's self-effacing and clever.
So I kind of enjoyed the subversiveness of that commercial.
Okay, the worst of these commercials, by the way, is the Pringles commercial.
It is a terrible commercial.
This is a truly bad commercial.
I'm so tired of boys.
What the hell would happen?
Sabrina Carpenter.
So she built a person made of Pringles.
Pringle Leo.
It's breaking apart.
I'm crying while cannibalizing her friend's boyfriend.
Okay, I don't even understand what that was supposed to be.
They went into the ad department and they said, we have Sabrina Carpenter for a thing.
And they're like, how do we do something with this?
And that's what they came up with.
Well, they can't all be winners.
Okay, I've been told that I must do Navartas.
Okay, here we go.
Have you ever...
Okay, so this is a bunch of NFL tight ends.
See, tight ends, this relaxed.
I am so relaxed.
They're carefree.
Calm.
Serene.
You know what these tight ends are so relaxed about?
Prostate cancer screenings.
They've learned there's a simple finger-free blood test.
Roughly one in eight men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I was one of them.
I'm here today because I caught it early.
Kronk, what'd I teach you?
Relax your tight end.
Oh.
Prostate cancer screening starts with a simple blood test.
Find out if a PSA blood test is right for you at Relax.
It's a bloodtest.com.
Okay, so Ashley, I was very much pro that commercial until the shots of the relaxing butts game.
I think the best one and the most effective one is the Xfinity commercial.
I think that the Fanatic Sportsbook one with Kendall is clever.
So I like that one.
I think the worst one is the Pringles one.
I think that's a bad commercial.
All right, folks, the show continues for our members right now.
We'll get to the latest in Iran.
Negotiations ongoing, but are they going anywhere?
Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.
If you're not a member, become a member.
Use code Shapiro and check out for two months free on all annual plans.
Click that link in the description and join us.
Okay, no, not even close.
Best And Worst Commercials 00:00:20
Two.
Great.
Whatever.
You know what?
Two, four, three, six.
I cannot believe we're back here again, Ben.
If the Ben Shapiro shows a mom, then Ben After Dark is a cool mom.
Jay!
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